Cyber Scammers

Every day in Britain 100 people become a victim on fraud when shopping online. Organised crime is now targeting the world’s biggest online site eBay.

Detectives from the London Regional Fraud Team investigate an eastern European criminal gang who are making millions in this new online crime. The gang have hundreds of accounts on eBay and offer cars and vans for sale, that don’t actually exist. They lure the victims in by sending false emails purporting to be from eBay and then divert the victims away from eBay’s site fooling them into paying money into accounts they control. Across Britain, thousands of victims have lost their life savings.

The gang, controlled by a man, known as ‘The General’ has been clever in staying one step ahead of the police and in hiding the money they steal. For every victim the gang target, they open a new bank account using false identity documents.

But Detectives place the gang under surveillance and uncover their international money laundering network. Detectives secretly watch as the gang fly people into Britain from Romania for the sole purpose of opening up bank accounts using false identity documents. Bank CCTV reveals that as soon as the victims pay the money into the accounts it is withdrawn by the gang’s lieutenants and handed to ‘The General, Madalin Popescu.

After months of painstaking detective work and surveillance, 150 officers from the City of London, Metropolitan and British Transport Police, launch raids on properties across London and Hertfordshire. Assisted by The National Crime Agency detectives uncover the gang’s fake identity factory, seize large quantities of cash and discover the gang are using the victim’s money to fund other crimes including drugs and running a brothel.